“Bless” But Never #Blessed

Also, “lucky in the unlucky”

I am a big fan of the idiom, “horseshoe up one’s ass!”

I have been thinking a lot recently about what it means when we use the terms “lucky” or “unlucky”. In the introduction to Mother Tongue Tied, I write how if you are reading the book and think it is “easy” to raise multilingual children, if you are someone whose language, accent or way of languaging is not discriminated against and you have never been judged or ridiculed for the way you use language, you are “lucky”. I conclude that paragraph with saying how like most things in life, luck should not play a part.

In medical diagnoses, life/death events and anything high-stake, you might hear something about the afflicted person being “lucky” even in an utterly shitty (“unlucky”) situation as if the lucky overrides the unlucky (in the best-of-the-worst scenarios it does of course). But “lucky” is relative if you consider comparing someone’s luck in an unlucky situation to another person’s luck at not being in an unlucky situation in the first place. That is a lot of “luck” and “unluck”! But considering it this way, notions around the words “lucky” and “unlucky” are blurred quickly.

I could give you an example, even a very personal one of what most people mean by being lucky in a very unlucky situation, but I think we have all either experienced something like this or have borne witness to someone’s “unlucky luck”. It is easy to fall into a dark hole of trying to find meaning, to explain, to define why some are “lucky” and others are “unlucky” or even, “lucky in the unlucky” but no, not everything happens for a reason. If you think it does, I ask you look around at what is happening in the world right now. There are no reasons. The phrase “silver lining” is similar to “there is a reason…” and I try to stay away from it as well.

But back to “lucky in the unlucky”. In Polish, it is the literal translation, “szczęście w nieszczęściu” and after a quick online search, I discovered the saying in other languages. As you know kids, the internet is not always reliable so if there is something you feel is incorrect in your language, please let me know in the comments or better yet, share what you say in your language for something that is “lucky in the unlucky”.

塞翁失马焉知非福 in Chinese is, according to a Reddit source, a tale of a lost horse that returns with a herd of wild horses a year later, a horse accident that prevents a young man from having to go to war and a few other events that unfold in this lucky in the unlucky way.

"Luck from Hell" in Czech: “pekla štěstí”

“être chanceux dans sa malchance” in French

"Glück im Unglück” in German

“Geluk bij ongeluk” in Dutch

And my favourite, in Russian:
Ложка меда в бочке дегтя:  "spoon of honey in a barrel of tar"

“A blessing and a curse” comes up online as well and although I don’t think it is the same as “lucky in the unlucky”, it brings me to the term “blessing” or rather, #blessed. In her 2015 New York Times article about the #blessed movement, “They Feel ‘Blessed’”, Jessica Bennett interviewed linguists Deborah Tannen and Ben Zimmer. Tannen noted “blessed” is a version of “lucky” but more than luck, it is a form of bragging.

I have always loathed any form of #blessed online, or off, for the simple reason that if someone considers themselves “blessed” that means there are people who are not “blessed” in this world and that is not OK. Who decides? If it is God, then what is the criteria because often, there is no consensus. So many circumstances affect who we are, what we have, how we live including yes, luck (joke is on me!)  It is also not lost on me that #blessed is a social media creation as IRL, the same people who post #blessed wouldn’t necessarily say “I am so blessed” out loud (although, some would). Consider for a second the birth lottery – or being safe from war, from genocide, from famine – simply because you were lucky to be born where you were. Is this #blessed? Or is it simply luck?

As I was finishing up this newsletter, a writer I highly admire,

Irina Dumitrescu

was also thinking and writing about luck this week. I especially loved her take on how her multilingual and multicultural self considers luck, something I think about often in terms of being Polish. I too am familiar with the Evil Eye and the many Polish superstitions!

Dumitrescu writes:

I’ve been thinking about bad luck lately. I find it difficult. This is where the cultural split in my upbringing — and therefore, personality — is most evident. My Canadian brain says: there is no such thing as bad luck, or any kind of luck. Or rather: you make your own luck, by working hard, risking new things, persevering. As you can probably tell, my Canadian brain doesn’t like to think of things being unfair…

Then there is my Romanian brain. It, too, is rational, but follows different rules. This version of my consciousness spent only its childhood in Romania (so cannot speak for the culture as a whole), but in those five-plus years it learned that the Evil Eye exists and can be drawn by both jealousy and admiration, and that you should not expect success or talk about good things happening, because that will definitely doom you to failure. My Romanian brain doesn’t believe in randomness so much as invisible forces of cursedness that have to be carefully managed, in thought and in speech.

As I write I realise that neither of these worldviews makes space for randomness. For luck.

I want to end on a saying I do love, one that was new to me as a Canadian in the UK. Take off the “ed” or the “ing” and you get the British-English “Bless”. Versions of this include “Oh, Bless!”, “Bless him/her” or my favourite simply, “Bless”. If you are unfamiliar with the saying, it has a few different meanings apparently. It may be used to express sympathy but is also common when someone considers something endearing or cute. For example, when telling a story about a child and something adorable they did, the other person might say “Oh bless!” I have also heard it can be used in a more negative, condescending way but I like to be optimistic and think of it as a way of caring for other people. And if we can all throw out some more “Bless” to others rather than simply turning inward and thinking how #blessed we are ourselves, the world might just be a little softer, a little kinder and a little bit more caring.

Thank you for reading.